Topsy-Turvy Court Decisions Ban Dieudonne – Again

The French government has won a last minute appeal on Thursday to France’s highest court, which reinstated a ban lifted hours before by a third court and decided that the French anti-Semitic comic Dieudonne M’bala M’bala cannot appear as scheduled in Nance.

Interior Minister Manuel Valls appealed to the Council of State, France’s highest court after judges in Nance overruled a lower court’s ban on the performance.

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Dieudonne, already convicted seven times for anti-Semitic hate speech, already had arrived at the theatre where he was to perform. Not to be silenced, he announced he will put on a show next to the French court in Paris.

The court decisions centered around the argument whether Dieudonne’s show, called “The Wall,” represented “an attack on human dignity as its main object.”

The comic’s lawyers appealed the initial ban on ground that it violated freedom of speech.

He won the appeal after judges decided that his performance did not endanger public order, but the highest court thought differently.

World Jewish Congress president Ronald Lauder called on France to “confront this preacher of hate head on,” and President Francois Hollande had earlier urged French officials to the ban on the show.

Dieudonne remains are scheduled to perform in other events, but Bordeaux and Marseilles already have cancelled the shows.

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